Fate: Altered Zero
by Dragonborn1721
Summary: The Fourth Holy Grail War did not start the way most masters had thought it would. Instead of summoning heroes bound to the Catalysts each one had found, they summoned a servant that fit their personality or fighting style. Kiritsugu Emiya, is particularly happy about the servant he got, at least it wasn't some kind of Holy Knight or something.


Across the world, four men gathered prana in their homes, concentrating it on a circle beneath each of them. One garbed in red, his dark hair covering part of his hair and two black clothed holy men standing behind him. Two, a young boy, still in school, was chanting within a clearing of trees. The third was surrounded but shadows and stone, his left eye bulging as something evil crawled around behind it, an old man stood behind him grinning. The last was perhaps the least emotive of the four, his face was completely blank except for the rare times where he looked over to a young white-haired woman standing in the room. Each of the four Masters were chanting, a call to the Holy Grail on the night where the ritual was at its strongest, the power flooded each room, filling it with the prana of both the Holy Grail and each of the four masters.

 _Fill, fill, fill, fill, fill! Repeat five times. But when each is filled, destroy it._

 _For the elements, silver and iron. For the foundation, stone and the Archduke of Pacts, and for the ancestor, the great master, _._

 _Raise a wall to block the falling wind. Close the gates of the four directions. Come forth from the Crown and follow the forked road leading to the Kingdom._

 _Heed my words. My will creates your body, and your sword creates my destiny. If you heed the Grail's call and obey my will and reason...then answer me_

 _I hereby swear... That I shall be all the good in the world and that I shall defeat all evil in the world._

 _Thou Seventh Heaven, clad in the great words of power, come forth from the circle of binding, Guardian of the Scales!_

Four, almost instantaneous flashes of light lit up the rooms on far parts of the world. And from it, four beings came forth, each as different as those that summoned them.

The man infested with worms had deliberately left out the lines for Mad Enhancement, and instead of a barely thinking beast, he was met by an incredibly beautiful purple haired woman, she was seemingly blind but knew exactly where everything was, and all he felt from her, and her from him was the desire to protect someone. She was the Rider of the Fourth Grail War.

The red-clothed man was beyond surprised, instead of the legendary Gilgamesh he thought he would be summoning, there was a man garbed in blue, wielding two spears that differed from each other like night and day. This was a proud man, with no real desire except to fight in great battles against powerful foes, the Lancer of the Fourth Grail War.

The boy's summon was strange. He had assumed he would be summoning the Legendary Alexander of Macedonia, and instead before him stood a woman garbed in blue cloth and brightly shining armour. She gave off an aura of power, of charisma, of the type of person that didn't demand respect, simply deserved it. She, was the Saber of the Fourth Grail War.

As with two of the other three Masters, the blank faced man was surprised. While he wasn't sure what King Arthur should look like, he knew that the skull masked servant he summoned was most certainly not the one he was looking for. Was he unhappy? Perhaps, it was undeniable that this Servant wouldn't be as powerful as a Saber, but perhaps the Assassin of the Fourth Grail War would be useful to Kiritsugu Emiya.

These four masters , chosen by the Holy Grail are where our story begins. In a Grail War that would make all others, both future and past look like children's spats in comparison. A war where countless lives would be lost in between the fighting between legends.

* * *

Kiritsugu Emiya was a troubled man, it wasn't his goals, or past that occupied these trouble. No, what troubled Kiritsugu was quite simple, the Einzbern family had informed him that they found the legendary scabbard, Avalon, a catalyst which no doubt should have called out to the legendary King Arthur, or at the very least someone close to him. But this, dark shrouded man was almost certainly not the King of Knights, for one the lack of any real armour or protection was a giveaway, but Servants could hide their arms and armour, so perhaps not a real sign. The real giveaway was in how he moved, this was no noble King, comfortable parading in front of a crowd, or charging at the head of any army. No, this being moved the exact same way that Kiritsugu did, quietly, efficiently. There was no wasted movement, no audible sound, simply being where he needed to be, when he needed to be. These were the movements of an Assassin.

But, perhaps this was better than a stronger servant. A Saber, as powerful as they would be, could never really help Kiritsugu fight in the way he usually would, oh they'd be stronger than just about any Servant, especially with King Arthur on his side, but would he be willing to do anything to kill the other Servants? Doubtful, very doubtful. But this Assassin, he wouldn't just be willing, he'd probably aim to excel, perhaps even coming up with ideas of his own and implementing them . Yes, this would suit the man called the Magus Killer nicely, this would make it almost too easy to win the Fourth Holy Grail War.

The Hundred-Faced Hassan was almost certainly content with its Master, a man by his own heart who would stop at nothing to defeat his enemies, truly the kind of man who he would be willing to fight with. However, his goal was not, quite what Assassin thought of such a man, he wanted the Holy Grail to save the world? Such an odd thing for a man so steeped in death to wish for. But, for that matter, what is it that Assassin wanted?

One of his many voices pled for more power, another for the glory to be with their God for all eternity, each voice held a different goal, a different wish for the grail. How would a thing with as many voices as Assassin had ever decide what he wished, perhaps his Masters wish wasn't so bad, at least he had a defining one. This man was definitely the best choice for the skull-masked man, him and his many bodies would flood this city of Fuyuki, with his Master at his side.

* * *

The clearing that Waver used to summon his servant could still be seen to have two different people inside. One, a short, small, relatively puny looking man, with a plain face, plain black hair and fairly plain clothes. Waver Velvet was many things, but someone that easily stood out was not one of them. The other however, was almost his opposite, yes she was still rather small, but the air of grace and beauty that surrounded her could not easily be dismissed, it was as if she were a Noble, someone that all should bow down in the presence of, and yet she seemed to be the sort to dislike the very idea of people doing that.

"You who stand in the circle, are you my Master?" Her voice, was as graceful and proud as he visage, and Waver simply couldn't look away or speak, he just stood there, staring at the woman he summoned. Only being brought out of it minutes later when the woman repeated herself, this time no small amount of aggression in her voice.

"I will ask one more time, are you my Master?"

"Ah, yes servant. I mean yes, I am...am the one who summoned you here". Waver stuttered and started, his speech not quite working like he hoped it would

"Well then well met, Master, I am of the class Saber. Before we move on to fight our enemies, I must ask you. What is it you seek from the Holy Grail." her voice was questioning, she seemed to be able to tell that Waver didn't have anything horrible in mind, at least not

Waver thought about that, what exactly did he want from the Holy Grail. Was it the power to prove himself as equally good as people like Kayneth, and the other nobles of the Clock Tower...No, it wasn't quite that, he definitely did want to gain recognition, but he always wanted to gain recognition for his own abilities, the Grail most certainly wasn't his ability, even if we won it'd be Saber who would've gotten him that power.

"I..I'm not sure miss Saber, I want recognition for my deeds, I know that much but the Grail can't really grant me that. I want people to treat me fairly, to treat all Magi the same even if they aren't from an old family but I don't really want to use the Grail to force others to do something. I just want to be respected I guess" the young boys voice was full of doubt as he said these words, full of doubt on whether he even knew what he wanted.

"I see then. Well then master, I will fight for you, at the very least your goal is not aimed at harming others, and I suppose what you want for in life isn't dishonourable, or horrible in any way. Yes, I will fight for you my master." The young woman responded, her voice full of the confidence that Waver only wished he could have.

And with that, the Saber class and her Master were officially ready to entire the Holy Grail War, and fight for what they each aimed for, whatever that might be.

* * *

Tokiomi Tohsaka was not a happy man, not at all. While he didn't know exactly what to expect of the King of Kings, he did at the very least know not to expect a man in blue armed with two spears. He did not expect to summon such a well known Irish Hero at all. Neither, for that matter, did either of the priests who had observed the ritual. If he weren't sure that that Grail worked, for what else did the Tohsaka family dedicate their life other than the ability to reach Akasha? And what else other than the Grail would give them their ability. Now Tokiomi had to do this with a sub-par Irish Hero. This Grail War truly couldn't have gotten off to a worse start for the head of the Tohsaka family.

Lancer really didn't care either way about his Master. He seemed to be a Noble so he could always be at least moderately honourable, but really you can never tell with a Mage, no Magus they're called now. They're usually all so deceitful, as long as Lancer is allowed to fight his way then there should be no problem between the two.

Both the Kotomine priests were surprised, one showed it much more than the other but nonetheless they were both expecting more. All of the information that the three of them had collected showed the Archibald would summon Diarmuid, he was the one who'd collected a catalyst designed purely to summon the Irish Hero. But regardless, it changed neither of their plans, they would still ally themselves with the one Master who had a predictable goal, one who had no truly evil intentions for the Holy Grail.

Regardless of how happy they were about it, the Kotomine Priests, Tokiomi Tohsaka and Lancer were all ready for the Grail War, or they would be as soon as the youngest one of them summoned their servant.

* * *

The pieces were slowly starting to fill the board, coming into play. Rider, Lancer, Assassin, Archer and Saber had already been summoned, now just two more pieces were needed before the Holy Grail War would truly start. Only Berserker and Caster were needed, and needless to say, the Masters in charge of those two servants weren't exactly the most pleasant of people.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

Hit here guys, I don't really like writing long AN's so I'm going to keep this short for now. This is my first story, and it's going to be a learning experience for me, I'm generally kind of bad at writing anything longer than a single chapter, but we'll see how this turns out.

I'm not sure if Kirei is younger than Tokiomi, from what I've read on the wiki, Tokiomi doesn't have a specific age, and it's just generally quite hard to tell. I'm going with Kirei being a fair bit younger than Tokiomi in this story, probably by about 10-15 years.

With the Summoning Ritual, I more or less copied that from the English version of the Fate/Zero anime, I had to rely on the subtitles, so it might not be 100% but personally it's just the one I prefer to use, the others are fine but this one is just something I'm more used to.

Master - Servant Teams so far

Kiritsugu Emiya - Assassin

Tokiomi Tohsaka - Lancer

Waver Velvet - Saber

Kariya Matou - Rider

4\. Alright, I quickly want to address Rider here. I did choose to remove Iskander from this story, it was by no means an easy decision (he's easily my favourite character) but he only works with Waver IMO, none of the other Masters could ever really have a decent relationship with him. Instead, I chose Rider (Stay/Night) for Kariya.

Thank you all for reading this, I encourage any feedback you have for me, on just about anything from my style, to my spelling/grammar (I'm one of those people who just lets little errors slip by and will never notice them), story, or whatever. I mostly want to write here to learn a bit more about writing and also because I just really enjoy writing about the Nasuverse in general.


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